Freiburg to Fribourg

Freiburg rests at the foot of the Black Forest in the south-west of Germany. It’s a medium sized city, founded almost 900 years ago, with cycle paths strewn all over, a high student population and is supposedly one of the warmest and sunniest parts of Germany. Of course, it was raining the whole time we…

My tour of Europe

Cycling through tiny hamlets, towns and cities – along open countryside, forests, farms, lakes, coastlines, beaches, cliffs, rivers and over mountains – on tarmac, gravel, dirt and mud – in scorching sunshine, clouds, rain, hailstones, thunderstorms and fog. And that’s only half of it. I met hundreds of lovely people, seen some incredible things and…

Luxembourg City

A surprisingly interesting and very green city, Luxembourg is the heart, and really the only city of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with around 100,000 people. Despite the political importance to the EU and the 100+ banks that are based here (contributing to a large part of the country’s wealth), it has a relaxed atmosphere…

A bike tour within a bike tour

Yesterday I accompanied Dave to his work – a bicycle tour guide! Where we both have commutes through heavy traffic, I think my daily cycle to work was somewhat different to Dave’s. Mine – an old tram route across Glasgow, the most interesting sights probably being a small park, the murky waters of the river…

Nice is nice

Yip, it’s officially the most terrible pun ever. ‘Nice’ is actually a really nice place. It’s one of the oldest human settlements in the world, dating to at least 300,000 years ago, and could be as old as 2 million. And it’s only been French for the last 150 years, previously belonging to Italy, which is…

Rome of the North

From Venice, I cycled across the plains of Northern Italy, The Alps a permanent fixture to my right, quietly ebbing away both east and west until the horizon allows no more. As the sun set behind the small hills overlooking Vicenza, I swapped sunglasses for head-torch and pitched up next to the river for the…

Venice

Ahhh, Venice. Well I finally made it here, five days later than I thought. Cold, heavy rain followed me from Ljubljana back to Nova Gorica, but a strong wind was behind me nearly the whole way. My bags like a sail, I managed to confuse a few car drivers when they were overtaken by a…

Ljubljana

On Monday morning I woke early to find my way to Ljubljana. I was camping just south of the city and although I was worried when I covertly went to bed that someone might find me and my tent, in the morning only one thing was clear: the fact that I was completely invisible. It’s…

Chillin’ in Zadar

Zadar is a coastal city half way up the coast of Croatia. It would be a quiet place were it not for all the tourists, despite it being the end of the holiday season. This city is far more geared up for the summer tourist as apposed to Zagreb, with ice-cream parlors, fast food and restaurants…

Time to leave Zagreb

So two days here slowly turned into 2 weeks. The staff at City Centre Hostel are so friendly, I’ve met lots of great people and I’ve had such a good time here it’s really hard to leave. It’s been a nice break for me to just chill out for a while, have a few beers…

Medvednica

Yesterday I had the pleasure of cycling up the mountain Medvednica to the summit, Sljeme. At over 1000m you get a great view over Zagreb. It took me an hour and 20 minutes to reach the top up the winding road. It was worth it. The photos are not so great but you could see…

Zagreb

I love this place. In fact I don’t really want to leave here. Sure, I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m either melting or on fire but it’s definitely worth it. And today, finally, the air conditioning has been fixed in my room and for once I can’t wait to go to bed.…